


Smoke and Mirrors

by theoneswhohavefallen



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Complete, F/M, Heavy Angst, I cried while writing this, One Shot, what if orthax took over in the Whitestone arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 23:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17151077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoneswhohavefallen/pseuds/theoneswhohavefallen
Summary: If Orthax had won the fight for Percival’s soul in the depths of Whitestone castle, he would have become a monster. And Vox Machina... well. They know how to deal with monsters.





	Smoke and Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Wattpad. Edited for posting here. (My work, don’t worry.)

The Briarwoods were dead.

That was the only good that had come of this whole terrible, terrible situation—and even then, Vex didn't know if she could count it as a victory, because of what had happened only seconds after.

She winced as the vision returned to her—those pale hands, clammy, cold with sweat, clutching a pearled metal handle, smoke pouring out of the gold-embroidered cuffs of his jacket...

It had gotten worse, so much worse, after Percy felled the Briarwoods. He has already flown into a rage the likes of which she had never seen, but she couldn't escape the memory of how their collapsed bodies seemed to... fuel him.

_It_. Fuel _it_.

She had to keep claiming that Orthax had been the true culprit—she had to believe that demon was the one who had done those terrible things. Because it couldn't have been Percy. It couldn't.

Vex refused to believe that beast was her Percival, the same man they had rescued from the underbelly of a dungeon with a mysterious weapon and a surprising amount of gold in his purse; who she had caught glancing at her fletching arrows after they'd only known him for two weeks, and afterward found a tied bunch of explosive arrows with her name tagged to them laying on her doorstep; who had never seemed to fear anything; who had stold at her side and watched her back for nearly a year; who she trusted so implicitly and loved so dearly she could remember how her chest ached for him when he revealed what had happened to his family...

Too bad the others didn't seem to agree when they sent her and Vax to hunt him and put him down like a rabid animal.

They'd been following the trail of bullet holes, scorch marks, and lingering smells of smoke and decay through the Parchwood around Whitestone for about a week now, while the other members of Vox Machina did their best to patch up the splintering city. With the Briarwoods gone, and the rest of the ruling faction similarly dispatched, Vox Machina and Keeper Yennen attempted to restore some sense of order to the scarred city. 

They hadn't told Yennen about all that had happened down in the catacombs. Vox Machina hadn't discussed trying to deceive him, or anyone in Whitestone, but none of those who had witnessed that tragedy ever wanted to repeat it. Saying the words out loud would make it so much more real.

Just thinking about it, formulating the sentences she might have said, made her mouth turn desert-dry.

_Percival killed the Briarwoods, then turned on his sister and shot her through the stomach without a thought. We barely managed to subdue him and tie him down—and then he flickered to smoke, slipped between the bindings and vanished out of the catacombs._

Her left shoulder still burned from the bullet that had embedded itself in the joint. She recalled that white-hot pain, the feeling of shattering bone and tearing muscle, and the sudden understanding of why Percy had always seemed so quietly dangerous.

Out of instinct, she winced at the ghost of the pain, and reached up to reassure herself she was all right—she had received plenty of attention from Pike after the initial fight, so she certainly was—and her heel slipped, shifting about five inches along the thick tree branch she was perched on, and sending her nearly pitching forward off the branch. A hand shot out from the shaded darkness near the trunk grabbed her upper arm and pulled her back into position.

"Steady, sis," her brother's voice floated cautiously out of the shade. "We've got to keep an eye out."

"We're close," Vex said, forcing the words around the lump in her throat.

"Too close," Vax echoed, with a hint of bitterness. He emerged from the darkness slowly, sighing, his hand falling away from where it had been resting on the dagger at his hip. "We are both too close, Vex'ahlia, to all of this, and especially to Percival."

"I know."

"Are you okay? With all of this—with what we have to do?" Vax's eyes searched her, cautiously, and with a very exposed concern that everyone but her was unused to seeing from her brother.

"No."

"Good. I'd be worried if you were."

"I mean, I _know_ we have to do this. I just..." Vex hesitated. "It feels wrong. We're hunting him like he's some kind of _monster_ , when two days ago he was our _friend_."

"Two days ago he hadn't killed his sister, shot you and Scanlan, and turned into some kind of... smoke demon. He's not Percival anymore, Vex," Vax's voice was stern, but edged with gentleness now, as though he was speaking to a child. Though, Vex noted bitterly, he had spoken to children with even less pity in his voice; this was a voice reserved for only her.

"I know. I know." She kept saying that, and yet she still didn't believe it. Neither did Vax, because he just looked at her with that same concerned frown he always had when she was upset and he was trying not to seem like he felt the same way.

"He's been taken by that thing. You know he wouldn't want that. He'd never hurt us—never hurt _you,_ in his right mind. You know this is what he'd want—it's what he asked us to do, if this happened."

"I know," Vex barely managed to whisper the words this time.

Vax nodded slowly, and had just opened his mouth to reply when his eyes suddenly darted over her shoulder. His mouth snapped shut soundlessly, and his jaw tensed with the rest of his lean muscles as he crawled further along the branch, directing Vex's attention to the rustling bushes behind her.

The wind carried the smell of smoke—not pleasant wood smoke, but the acrid stench of a burning, decaying body—to her nose, and she knew he was there. _It_ was there.

It came stumbling out of the brush, Percival's body moving unnaturally, like a marionette on strings—limbs jerking awkwardly forward, lifeless, almost zombie-like. She saw the tattered blue coat, the lines of blood from yet-unhealed wounds smeared with dirt across his hands and face. His hair was a mess of leaves and twigs—his glasses remained, somehow, perched on his nose, the both lenses cracked so badly they were nearly falling to dust.

Another memory flashed through Vex’s mind—of graceful steps, his coat newly repaired and cleaned from their last minor adventure, his hand on her waist. He was showing her the steps to a dance they needed to know to infiltrate some formal dinner party. He was supposed to show Keyleth, too—and perhaps he did—but all Vex could remember was how they danced. 

Really, she'd known how to waltz since she was very young—ballroom dancing was a part of her father's idea of an "appropriate education," after all—but Percival had offered, and she didn't feel like refusing.

Vex stifled a sob, and Vax's hand found her shoulder. She didn't look back at him this time.

Vex nocked the arrow and tried not to wince away as she pulled back the string, her eyes trained on Percival.

She caught a glimpse of his irises, once a striking cloudy blue and now a dark, bloodshot black. Her fingers trembled, but she kept her grip on the arrow.

As she loosed the arrow, though, she closed her eyes.

She wouldn't watch this, and she would pray to whatever gods still listened to her voice that she wouldn't see that image—of her arrow in his skull and a dagger in his heart—in her nightmares that night.

Somehow, she knew she wouldn't be so lucky.


End file.
